


Gaslight

by SeeNashWrite



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Family, Gen, Humor, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-07
Updated: 2017-03-07
Packaged: 2018-09-30 09:41:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10160426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeeNashWrite/pseuds/SeeNashWrite
Summary: A lively conversation amongst siblings - just your typical morning in the bunker [could be a stand-a-lone or an accompaniment to “Top of the World”].





	

 

When Dean walked into the library, all shuffling slippers and sips of coffee, she began to read aloud.

_"They could be careless people, Sam and Dean. They smashed up things and creatures, then retreated back into their bunker or their vast solitude, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the messes they had made…"_

He rubbed at his unshaven jaw with his free hand, blinking purposefully more than a few times as he eased into better lighting. Threw a yawn and a head scratch in there somewhere to completely paint the picture. She met his grogginess with sharp eyes, bringing her gaze up and over the top of her reading glasses.

"That's kinda pretty," Dean commented, flopping into a chair across the table from her. Then, after a moment of consideration, he added, "I mean, it's also kinda insulting. But pretty. You write that?"

She grinned. "No. Well. Sort-of."

That earned her a _look_.

"The parts about you guys are all me. The pretty belongs to Fitzgerald."

"Who?"

"You know. Gatsby."

Dean wrinkled his nose. "Look, I'm not saying I _hate_ Leo, just… I'm not gonna cry if an iceberg happens to–"

And that earned _him_ an exaggerated eye-roll-sigh-combo. He hid a smile behind his cup with the next sip. She wasn't even in the neighborhood of serious.

"I'll loan you the book," she offered. "I've got an actual copy somewhere. It's a quick read, you'll be done in no time."

"Bathroom?"

"Not _that_ quick."

"Who said anything about–"

Dean was blessedly cut off by the sound of the outer door banging shut, followed shortly by the inner door's built-in alarm system of loud creaks and groans. Then Sam's sneakered feet were bounding down the staircase.

"Morning!" he called to them, still in a jog, hanging a right and heading to the kitchen.

"Anyway, I know Fitzgerald."

"Okay," she replied absently, pulling her finger across the screen, whipping through the pages in reverse, ready to go back to when Gatsby called on Daisy.

"Yeah, he wrote… aw damn, what was the…"

_FLIP. FLIP. SCAN. FLIP._

"...oh, yeah - that case. Benjamin Button."

Her fingertip screeched to a halt and her narrowed eyes met his.

"What?" she shot back, a little more clipped than she'd meant to, but _what._

Dean watched as she processed what he'd said, then as she quickly minimized the book window, pulled up a browser and started typing.

"I know I'm right," he informed her.

"About what?" Sam asked, coming to sit beside him.

Dean wrinkled his nose. Again. "You stink."

"Well, so do you," Sam responded calmly before gulping down more water from the already half-empty bottle in his hand.

"Shut. Up. You're right."

"Right about what?" Sam asked. Again.

"Janey doesn't think I'm well-read," Dean replied.

" _Janey_ doesn't think that at _all_ , but she _does_ wish you'd quit being so uppity."

Sam and Dean both snickered.

"We were talking Fitzgerald and Benjamin Button," Dean explained.

"No, but really - I know ol' Scottie wrote lots of stuff, but that just seems… a little _random_ , I guess," said [Jane](https://archiveofourown.org/series/977562).

"He's not reading the classics on the john, if that's what you're thinking," Sam told her, causing Dean and Jane to share raised eyebrows and amused looks.

"Ah, okay, _not_ gonna ask," Sam stated, but there was a chuckle behind it. "Look in the early 20th century section, should be under… oh… Midwest, I think…."

He glanced at Dean.

"I wanna say Iowa," came his older brother's response, and he nodded.

"Me, too. Check Iowa first."

Jane nodded as well, closed down the window she had up and tapped the link that led to their ever-growing virtual file cabinets.

Lots of lore to be had out there, and no more than a click or three or five away, sure. But there was just something about the rest. Something about the more personal things.

Being able to take _all_ of it along - their research, Men of Letters case files, John's and Bobby's scanned-in handwritten notes, whatever was leftover from the Campbell stash - it was kind've a nice little security blanket when motel bedding wasn't up to snuff.

"Are you watching this? This is me not asking questions and just trusting you," Jane said in an almost sing-song voice, eyes down, scrolling through an index at lightning speed.

"We noticed," they replied in near-unison.

"Because you haven't bothered to share with me what the hell any of this has to do with playboy millionaires or buttoned Benjamins…"

"Want me to spoil you?" Sam asked.

She immediately set the tablet aside and perched her glasses atop her head.

"You have both my adoration and my attention," Jane answered with a smile.

"See, now why–"

Dean sat up straighter, looking and speaking to Sam but pointing at Jane. Then he reversed course, pointing at his brother but directing his question towards his sister.

"Why don't you talk to _me_ like that? It's just mean, is what it is, and it makes me think you're–"

"Trying to hurt your feelings?" Jane finished for him, and with nothing less than a nauseated look on her face. "God, _don't_ say it's that, I will be so disappointed in you, you have no idea."

"She's kissing my ass so she doesn't have to dig through the entire 20th century," Sam advised him, then worked on killing off the rest of his water bottle.

Dean arched an eyebrow at Jane, and she shrugged.

"It's a big-ass file, my dude."

"Yeah but _you're_ in charge of research. Sammy's off the bench and–"

Sam made a mild sputtering sound, coughing a little when Dean's statement hit his ears at the same time those last drops of water hit his throat.

"'Sammy's _off_ the _bench_?'" Sam repeated, slowly turning in his seat to stare at Dean.

"You know what I mean."

Sam's jaw dropped and then his volume kicked up a notch.

"No. No, Dean, I don't. I don't know at _all_ what you mean."

"Oh son of…" Jane muttered under her breath, sliding the glasses back to her nose and the tablet to its original position.

The men bickered, but it didn’t get too far gone because Jane shortly hit pay dirt, and the conversation she began to hold with herself drifted in-and-amongst their own.

"Cross-reference by one 'Winchester, Dean' for 'Benjamin Button', nice," she commented.

"I've never _not_ been off the bench, so yeah - it's insulting," Sam was saying.

"Backwards Plague, Iowa, Johnson County," Jane continued, reading a little louder.

"You shoulda heard what _she_ said about us earlier," Dean was countering.

"Aren't we a little old for that?" Sam asked.

"What?"

"Passing blame along?"

"People between sixteen and twenty-four were said to be losing weight, then overall body mass…."

“I'm not _passing_ anything, she said you and I smash crap and then leave the crap lying around."

"...then when they got all the way down to being newborns, this 'plague' stopped and they grew up again."

Jane pulled her glasses back up to her head.

"I swear, Iowa is following me," she said.

The fussing was put on pause, both men looking at her with odd expressions.

"Sam, Johnson County - that doesn't happen to be where the… shoot, what were we thinking it was? A bridge or door or whatever? Out in that field, and that man plowed under like a third of his crop to give a bunch of baseball-playing ghosts somewhere to haunt?"

"Yeah," Sam confirmed, then looked to Dean. "Back in the '80s. They'd terrorized the previous dozen or so owners, of course it was never disclosed. Guy nearly lost his farm, but probably saved his family's lives."

"Huh," Dean commented.

"See?" Jane said to him. "I'm the research queen."

A pause.

"Queen-consort."

Another pause.

"A duchess-by-marriage, at least."

Sam stood and Dean handed him his empty coffee cup without a word.

Jane tried and failed to squash a tiny grin at the look on Sam's face, but he didn't seem to care, asking if she'd like him to start the kettle for her. She glanced at her watch. The research mini-break she'd spent partying at Jay's had gotten away from her, cutting straight through her usual tea time.

"You're my favorite," she told Sam with a wink. Dean shot her a bird as he pretended to scratch his nose. So Sam thumped his ear. Typical morning.

"I forget, does it say anything else? Did anybody ever find out what was up with that stuff?" Dean asked her as Sam left the room.

"Corn poltergeists," Jane replied.

They stared at each other in silence for a few moments before she spoke again.

"This is my life."

"Welcome to the club, kiddo. And I meant the other thing - the Backdoor plague–"

" _Backwards_ plague, and you know it."

Back on went the glasses.

"Hold on, lemme see… no, I don't think… you know, for heaven's…"

Jane brought a flat expression up to meet Dean's smug one.

"No. No resolution that I can see. But I _do_ see it was all written up by an Iowan M-O-L brother: one 'Fitzgerald, _Harvey_ '."

Dean didn't bother to hide a smirk because, well, why start now?

"I hate you," said Jane.

"You love me," said Dean.

"I know."

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is fuel! Let me know if you enjoyed. -Nash


End file.
